Terminology Release Management

Tender description

Building upon our investment to date in a new terminology authoring environment, we are looking to develop a comprehensive release management architecture for all UK Terminology products. That architecture will allow for the complete build and validation of UK Terminology, and its integration with our other data standards authoring tools and data processing platforms. As NHS Digital we are the UK’s focal point for the development and distribution of data standards for health and care. Our data standards cover both the detailed recording of what happened to a person during their treatment, and the aggregation of completed treatments for numerous other clinical, operational and statutory reporting purposes. In capturing what happened to a person during their treatment, the UK has adopted the international standard, Systemized Nomenclature of Medical Clinical Terms (SNOMED CT). SNOMED CT is a structured health and care vocabulary for use in electronic health records. It is developed by SNOMED International, an organisation made up of its member nations. NHS Digital acts as the UK representative to SNOMED International, and as such we are the UK distributor of SNOMED CT. The version of SNOMED CT produced by SNOMED International is one which is common to the needs of all its member nations. Given the model for health and care delivery employed across the UK, the international version of SNOMED CT must be modified to meet the needs of the NHS and social care. We therefore develop and distribute a UK variant of SNOMED CT, generally referred to as UK Terminology. Currently, UK Terminology has two distinct product lines, the integrated release and the drugs extension release. In time and as older standards are retired UK Terminology may grow to encompass new product lines such as medical imaging. The integrated release encompasses all clinical, care, and drugs terminology relevant to the UK. The drugs extension is specifically tailored to align with the releases of the